horse hair

[horses50]

A friend of mine does up old chairs and she took the filling out of the seat of one and it was horse hair she said "would you like it" well,not wanting to appear ungreatful i said yes so i am now the proud owner of a tesco bag full of old horse hair.It looks rather dark in colour and quite stiff, but what could i use it for and do you have to soak it in water to soften it up or should i just bin it.

[richardw]

Wet it and tie fly bodies with it. If you have long strands you can make a fly line with them. It takes about an hour to make a tapered flyline of about 15ft length using the method in the Treatyse:




You can make the machine with a broom handle, a dowel, a sheet of wood half an inch thick and some wedges to adjust the length.

There's a programme on Discovery showing such a machine being used to make a line in the Compleat Angler series.

richard

[budgie]

I use horse hair for ribbing and for bodies as a substitute for quill biots. I have some lighter hair from the mane and tail, and I like the transluscency of the material. Check out the old Geoffrey Bucknall pattern "the footballer" which uses horse hair and mole fur.

[dabhoy]

There are quite a few older patterns which use horse hair in particular spiders.

[garyatwyffs]

I use dyed horsehair alot, its a cracking material and creates a nice segmented body, as noted above soak it 1st to make it supple.

A couple of examples of its ues below.

Olive horsehair klink


Black horsehair klink


Its good for nymphs and also as noted above spiders. Good on the klinks as it doesn't absorb water easily and keeps them sitting high in the water.

[syphogenic]

You can knot it and use it for durable hopper legs, beetle legs and antennae etc.

[horses50]

Looks like that bagfull is going to be of some use after all,thank you for your replies.What sort of dye do you use garyatwyffs?

[garyatwyffs]

Hi horses50, I buy it already dyed for Chris at Lathkill, I think he uses Veniard dyes.